[Energy Efficient Material as 3D Printing Supplies]

Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Background…………………………………………………………… 1.2 Definition of Terms…………………………………………………… 1.3 Objective……………………………………………………………… 1.4 Overview………………………………………………………………

2. Needs for Energy Efficient Materials
2.1 Contemporarily Used Materials……………………………………… 2.2 Reason for Energy Efficient Materials………………………………

3. Properties and Development of Energy Efficient Materials
3.1 Properties…………………………………………………………… 3.2 Development…………………………………………………………

4. Advantages and Disadvantages of 3D Printing Energy Efficient Supplies Compared to Conventional Materials
4.1 Advantages…………………………………………………………… 4.2 Disadvantages…………………………………………………………

5. Opportunities for the Development of Energy Efficient Materials in 3D Printing 6. Recommended Solutions to Deal with Challenges for Energy Efficient Materials in 3D Printing 7. Conclusion 8. References

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Energy Efficient Material as 3D Printing Supplies 1. Introduction
1.1 Background The 3D printing technology has become popular nowadays (Sharma, 2013). This technology has made it possible for mankind to produce almost everything they can imagine. Furthermore, since the energy efficient material is a new concept that has been developed in recent years, a discussion on the potential application of those materials in this additive manufacturing method appears to be necessary.

1.2 Definition of Terms As the first issue of this essay, some key terms should be defined. According to Oxford Dictionary (2014), 3D Printing means a process for making a physical object from a threedimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of a material. Comparing with the conventional manufacturing process, this technology can reduce the waste of materials and energy dramatically. Moreover, the introduction of energy efficient material can make this system cleaner and more economical (Bassoli, et al., 2007).

Efficiency is defined as the percentage of output divides input. High efficiency means investing in less input but getting more output. CEEM (2013) explains that energy efficient materials include three different categories of materials: direct energy-saving materials, indirect ones and catalyst. As its literal meaning suggests, they originally refer to some kinds of materials that consume less energy than the standard in its production. Also they could refer to some materials with superior energy efficiency. And the last means some materials which facilitate the system or technology to consume less energy during their operation. 1.3 Objective The purpose of this paper is to introduce the application of energy efficient materials in 3D printing, analyze the opportunities and challenges of its development and then give a prediction over its future trend.
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1.4 Overview To attain this objective, the needs for energy efficient materials, properties and development of energy efficient materials will be discussed. A comparison of their advantages and disadvantages with conventional materials will follow, together with opportunities of development and suggestions on its challenges.

2. Needs for Energy Efficient Materials
2.1 Contemporarily Used Materials As can be seen from Figure 1 below, various types of materials could be used for 3D printing. In the same way, materials from the four families, which are metals, polymers, ceramics and composites, have found their positions in this technology advancement. For example, thermoplastic in polymers can be utilized for module toys, and titanium alloy could be employed to produce aircrafts with 3D printing technology (Kneissl, 2013). At the same time, with the growing concept of environmental protection, energy efficiency has been increasingly emphasized by all the industries.

Source: IDTechEx, cited from Kneissl (2013) Figure 1: The current breakdown of the materials market

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2.2 Reasons for Energy Efficient Materials Energy efficient materials thus offer an option of greener 3D printing. Environmental issues like global warming, shortage of energy, extreme climate have aroused enough public concerns about the environment. Climate-Communication (2014) attributes the major cause of climate change on energy consumption as well. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2013) reported that about 39% of the total energy consumption of America is used to generate electricity, most of which is generated from fossil fuels. Since environmental pollutions caused by the use of fossil fuels are not avoidable contemporarily, the energy efficiency material is one possible way to mitigate such conflict. The applications of these environmental-friendly materials are expected to facilitate the utilization of energy and thus cause less damage to the earth.

Furthermore, the quality of this service is primarily determined by the property of printing materials. Now 3D printing service has encountered its bottleneck of development, which is the materials of printing supplies (Bauwens, 2013). For the purpose of energy saving printing, energy efficient materials are put in place to this technology. Since the 3D printing is achieved by reading the information of the cross sections, printing these cross sections with liquid, powdered or pieced materials and adhering all these cross sections to be a single entity, the printing materials should surely have high levels of energy performance by achieving the same effects of printing without excessive energy use (American Chemistry Council, 2014).

3. Properties and Development of Energy Efficient Materials
3.1 Properties Materials with the properties of low-melting-point, powdered or melted appearance, light and sturdy will be entertained as the supplies of 3D printing (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2013). The property of low-melting-point can save energy required for printing largely. Powered or melted appearance enables a greener printing process of assembling components instead of segmenting process where severer air pollutions might be produced. The performance of light and sturdy will also improve the printing products’ economic efficiency and utility for the benefit

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of users. These materials should be able to help the printing process lower its energy consumption, cause less harm to the environment and increase the economic value for the users.

3.2 Development Throughout years, the development of 3D printing materials has been geared to be more concerned about energy efficiency. One example of energy efficient material is nylon, a polyester from the polymer family. Polyesters are bonded by '-acid amide' which has the similar atomic structure with protein. Between molecules, there are hydrogen-bond which leads to condensation (Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent No. 2,747,222., 1956). Some general features of nylon such as stiffness and toughness, high abrasion resistance and engineering plastic have made it wildly spread in nearly all aspects of our life. Yet the production of nylon itself is highly energy-consuming and polluting.

Subsequently, there emerge two possible methods to deal with this problem. One solution is to recycle the abandoned plastics. Another one would be to reduce the energy consumption in the manufacturing process. Regarding the first solution, a project called Perpetual Plastic (2014) has been settled to transform waste plastics into ‘ink’ of 3D printer. Similarly, another PVC recycling process called VinyLoop demands only 54% of the energy that is required in traditional PVC production process (VinyLoop Ferrara S.p.A., 2012). This recycling method could not only reduce the cost of producing PVC inks significantly, but also provide a solution to those hard-to-degrade rubbish. On the other hand, manufacturers are devoting in improving the production energy efficiency on the basis of the traditional process. For example, INVISTA (2012, cited from Kan, 2012, para. 5), one leading producer of polymers and fibers, has announced that they could save about 83.3% electricity compared with alternative production technologies and cut down carbon dioxide emissions significantly with their adiponitrile(ADN) production technology.

4. Advantages and Disadvantages of 3D Printing Energy Efficient Supplies Compared to Conventional Materials
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4.1 Advantages Taking account of the advantages of energy efficient 3D printing materials, it is clear that mankind would benefit from their application. Once these materials are wildly adopted in the growing 3D printing industry, the energy savings could be obviously significant to the environment compared to the processes of producing traditional energy-excessive materials. Likewise, as the 3D printing industry is criticized for its huge consumption of electrical power for melting the raw materials, a low-melting-point energy efficient material like Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) would help offset, to some extent, this drawback. Furthermore, these energy efficient materials might create more values by increasing the overall energy efficiency or facilitate the system to consume less energy as a catalyst after being integrated into the printed subject. Additionally, for the widespread use of recycled energy efficient materials, it is expected that their application in 3D printing will provide a more effective solution to the waste treatment comparing to landfill disposal or incineration disposal in terms of the land pollution and air pollution.

4.2 Disadvantages In spite of the benefits that energy efficient materials bring, the disadvantages of these materials cannot be neglected either. Comparing with the conventional materials, energy efficient materials are usually more environmental but cost higher due to the immature technology which is not suitable for large scale production as well as a constant supply. In contrast, the production processes of conventional materials have been perfected throughout years and market competition has been established so that consumers can enjoy an equilibrium price and quantity for those materials. In another aspect, introduced to the market as substitute products for conventional materials, the energy efficient materials may not perform as well as the conventional ones (Amari, et al., 1999). A typical example is the recycled materials like plastic and glass which may behave poorer than expected when aged. Equally, Hartman (2014) argues that the impure recycled materials might cause more energy for purification. Concerning the energy consumption and pollution in the transportation process, one has to balance the cost of transporting these materials and the energy saved by the recycled ones. In addition, the volatile organic compounds generated from melting down plastics could arouse severe environmental and health consequences.

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5. Opportunities for the Development of Energy Efficient Materials in 3D Printing
There is a trend of tremendous polymer consumption in the 3D printing industry (see Figure 2 below), especially thermoplastics and photopolymers (Kneissl, 2013). The popularization of 3D printer has provided an opportunity for the development of energy efficient materials in the form of recycled materials and low-energy polymers. The demand for 3D printing supplies, as complementary products of 3D printers, could grow with this industry accordingly.

Source: IDTechEx, cited from Kneissl (2013) Figure 2: Market growth in a business-as-usual scenario According to the research conducted by Kneissl (see figure 2 above), there are expectations of growing markets for both photopolymers and solid form thermoplastics while the ones for powder-bed inkjet materials, metal powders and powder form thermoplastics remain approximately constant. It can be induced that the former two kinds of 3D printing materials have a promising ground of need and development. Since most of the energy efficient materials lie in these two layers, it is an opportunity for the energy efficient supplies to be spread in the 3D printing industry.

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6. Recommended Solutions to Deal with Challenges of Energy Efficient Materials in 3D Printing
The disadvantages mentioned before are the major challenges that block the energy efficient materials from being popular in 3D printing. Thus four solutions are suggested to capture the opportunity for further development:

The first reason for lowering the costs of energy efficient materials especially the photopolymers and solid form thermoplastics, is to realize large scale production. As one portion of the energy efficient materials, the need might be substantial enough. Once the energy efficient materials could be produced in large quantity, the great fix cost increase from new technology adoption can be allocated into every piece of product and make its price more appealing to consumers. Lower prices for these environmentally-friendly materials will enhance their competitiveness to conventional materials and increase the popularity of their adoptions.

Another reason that needs to be considered is to encourage competition in the market for positive feedback to scale production and a fair price for consumers. With technology development, the cost of these existing processes would decline. With a lower entry barrier, more competitors should enter energy efficient material market and competition would lead to more supplies and an equilibrium price as well as the equilibrium quantity of needs and supply. The market competition would not only provide a cheaper price for clients but also maintain a constant and sustainable supply for 3D printing. Generally speaking, this scenario would make this industry more competitive to conventional material industry.

Perhaps more importantly, a wiser recycling system is required. This system should detect and categorize different materials and select recycle-worth 3D printing materials. Those collection stations should be able to report the quantity of the collection and transport the inventory when reaching its critical value to save the energy waste in transportation. And this system should abandon highly toxic or energy-consuming processes in the production of recycled materials.

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Such a recycling system can lower the costs of waste classification and provide relatively constant sources for the production of recycled materials.

Apart from the reasons mentioned above, another important factor that should be considered is accelerated technology advancement. As for the problem of secondhand fumes, one could only rely on inventions of clean energy efficient materials to substitute the abuse of plastics in 3D printing industry. It is believed that the advanced technology of clean materials in the future can provide a cure for the environmental pollutions that mankind is facing now.

6. Conclusion
This paper has examined the needs, properties and development, advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and suggestions on its challenges of energy efficient materials as 3D printing supplies. From what has been discussed above, publics’ growing awareness of environmental protection drives the demand over energy efficient materials in 3D printing industry. Recycled materials and low-energy polymers are two major applications of energy efficient printing supply. These materials can at least, if not more than, decrease the energy consumption in material production, printing process and printed system operation. But high production cost, underperformance of these substitutable materials together with the potential toxic emission are the blocks from further development of energy efficient supplies. However, it is not wise to “through the baby out with the bath water”. The drawbacks can be then subdued by scale production of energy efficient thermoplastic and photopolymers, market competition as well as intelligent recycling system. Above all, the problems should be solved eventually by clean energy efficient materials rather than proliferation of improved polymers. There is huge potential in material filed that remains to be explored before a perfect energy efficient material can be found.

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7. References
Amari, T., Themelis, J. N., & Wernick, K. I. (1999). Resource recovery from used rubber tires. Resources Policy, 25(3), pp. 179-188. American Chemistry Council. (2014). Energy Efficiency and the Impact on the Atmosphere. Retrieved from Green Building Solutions: http://www.greenbuildingsolutions.org/MainMenu/Home/Modern-Materials-Archive/Energy-Efficiency/Energy-Efficiency-and-theImpact-on-the-Atmosphere.html Bassoli, E., Gatto, A., Iuliano, L., & Violante, M. (2007). 3D printing technique applied to rapid casting. Rapid Prototyping Journal, 13(3), pp. 148-155. Bauwens, M. (2013, November 23). Bottlenecks in creating a 3D Printing commons. Retrieved from http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/bottlenecks-in-creating-a-3d-printingcommons/2013/11/23 CEEM. (2013). Overview. Retrieved from The Center for Energy Efficient Materials: http://ceem.ucsb.edu/ Climate-Communication. (2014). An Urgent Need For Climate Policy / Energy Efficient Programs. Retrieved from climatecommunication: http://www.climatecommunication.org/change/urgent-need/ Hartman, D. (2014). The disadvantages of recycled plastics. Retrieved from ehow: http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_7254476_disadvantages-recycled-plastics.html Kan, W. (2012). INVISTA Unveils New, Energy-efficient Nylon Intermediates Technology. Retrieved from INVISTA: http://www.invista.com/en/news/pr-invista-unveils-new-andtechnology.html Kneissl, W. (2013). 3D Printing Materials 2014-2025: Status, Opportunities, Market Forecasts. Retrieved from http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/3d-printing-materials-20142025-status-opportunities-market-forecasts-000369.asp?viewopt=showall
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Koch, R. B. (1956). Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent No. 2,747,222. Oxford Dictionary. (2014). 3D Printing. Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/ Perpetual Plastic. (2014). perpetual plastic project. Retrieved from perpetualplasticproject: http://www.perpetualplasticproject.com/#partners Sharma, R. (2013, August 27). About Wall Street's Enthusiasm For 3D Printing. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rakeshsharma/2013/08/27/about-wall-streetsenthusiasm-for-3d-printing/ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2013, September 25). How does electricity affect the environment? Retrieved from Clean Energy: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energyand-you/affect/ VinyLoop Ferrara S.p.A. . (2012). VinyLoop: Environmental Solutions. Retrieved from VinyLoop White Paper: http://pieweb.plasteurope.com/members/pdf/p223847a.PDF

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